February 17, 2014

Hello,

I got both your and G&G Stapley's packages before my birthday.  The card was great! I didn't really do anything for my birthday but I had a chocolate cake for lunch.

I can't think of anything good to write.  In this area we spend a lot of time just walking around talking to people.  We always find a bunch of really cool people who nevertheless have no interest in what we have to say.  Or they don't respond afterwards. Sometimes we go our entire week like that.  A few contacts, a few street lessons but none of the really important things.  Just being obedient and hopefully planting a few seeds.

We did have one good lesson this week.  One of our English students, Hong Gwan, has some interest in learning about our church.  We met and ate dinner and talked about God and commandments.  He says he doesn't have much belief and doesn't want to but he was very concerned about the Ten Commandments and how Korean culture breaks them.  I think he has more belief than he thinks and I'm hopeful that we can help him realize that.

Next week is transfer calls.  Anything could happen.

I love you all.  

Elder Stapley

February 9, 2013

Right now I'm reading about the snow in Kansas and looking out of the window at the snowstorm outside in Busan.  We never get snow this far south.  It's not sticking of course but its been going all morning.

As part of an effort to help the ward be more united we are going to have a scripture study group once a week.  We expect about two people to show up this week.  Oh well.

Have I talked about how I feel about the Gospel of Christ yet?  I can't remember.  My favorite lesson to teach is the Gospel of Christ.  I'm sure it just because I understand it more than the others.  Before my mission it seemed like my answer to every question was faith.  As a missionary my favorite subject became repentance.  And recently I have been seeing how much happier people are when they keep their covenants and have the Spirit in their lives. 

Every part these first principles of Christ's gospel is a great blessing all on it's own but when you put it all together you get the remission of sins and spiritual healing.  If we have faith to trust God and are willing to act to become better and progress we receive help and support from God.  We let our covenants guide our priorities and we can know what is most important in life. The Spirit guides us and protects us from danger.  Through the Atonement of Christ our guilt and our weaknesses are taken away.  As we see the power of these gifts at work in our lives our testimony of these things becomes stronger and we can know that God does forgive us of our mistakes.  I'm incredibly thankful to have access to such great gifts.  Its important now that we share them.

I might have a bit more to write but that's all I can think of right now.  It was a fairly slow week.

Love you,  

Elder Stapley

February 3, 2014

 With a recent convert at our Christmas program.  I refused to wear the make-up.

A fountain thing we drank out of while hiking in Jinhae 

Kim Min-jae's baptism, with his mom and Elder Wilson

Pday in Miryang

I brought my robe?  I'd forgotten!

Hello,

This last week has been pretty slow.  It is Chinese New Year, one of the biggest holidays here.  During this time all the people have big family reunions, usually in Seoul, and they eat for three days straight.  Visiting people and proselyting don't really work well so we cleaned the house thoroughly for a whole day and into the next.  Thankfully today most people have returned and are back to work.  We will need to get back in touch with the people we are working with this week so hopefully we can be fairly busy.

Have I talked to you about Edward yet?  He is a Chinese man working here in Korea for a few years.  We haven't been able to meet him much because he has been back in China with his family and then he had to scramble to meet a deadline at work.  We met him a couple weeks ago but now he's back in China and he won't get back for a few weeks.  However out of all our current investigators he has been the most prepared.  He has a Chinese and an English copy of the Book of Mormon that he reads side-by-side to help him understand.  He really wants to believe in God and the Plan of Salvation.  He loves the idea of eternal families.  Because of his culture he has a really hard time understanding some things and he's not sure that he can ever really believe in God.  He's trying though.  That's more than most people.  He hates the ward here (he knows zero Korean) and is worried about making commitments that would be difficult to keep when he returns to China.  He is in my prayers every night.

This morning I made a cake in a bowl in the toaster oven.  It mostly worked. It sort of looks like a volcano because the bowl wasn't quite wide enough for that much batter and the outside cooked faster.

I'm still waiting for the computer that can send pictures but I will definitely do that soon.  I might write some more but this is all I can think of for now.

Love you,

Elder Stapley